留学生作业代写：What is Justice

下面为大家整理一篇优秀的paper代写范文-What is Justice，供大家参考学习，这篇论文讨论了什么是正义。在人类历史上，正义是一个对个人和国家都起着重要作用的范畴。例如，人们应该真诚对待他们的朋友，而不欺骗或窃取他们。此外，人们必须对自己的国家诚实和忠诚，这样才能被视为公正的人。正义不是人们追求的美德或善良，而是实现善良的手段。

Justice,
in human intellectual history, is a category playing a significant role for
both individuals and the states. For instance, people should treat their
friends in just without lying to them or stealing from them. In addition,
people have to be honest and loyal towards their own states in order to be
considered as a just man. With regards to the question “what is justice”,
however, philosophists have different answers. In The Republic, Cephalus
proposed that paying debts is justice. Polemarchus thought that justice is
giving to each what is owed to him (Plato, 4). Thrasymachus, however, believed
that justice is the interest of the strongers (Plato, 21). Glaucon put forward
that the essence of justice is the compromise of the best and the worst (Plato,
35). For centuries, philosophers, ethicists and jurists proposed all sorts of
ideas of justice. In this essay, via the discussion on justice between Socrates
and Polemarchus in Republic, the answer to the question “what is justice” will
be explored.

Justice
can be defined from various perspectives. For people who cherish for
friendship, justice is being honest to friends. For those who concern more
about families, justice is being dutiful to parents. For soldiers who are
responsible for guarding their countries, justice is protecting and not
betraying the homelands. As a matter of fact, the more suitable definition is
that justice is what people pursue for.

In
the beginning of the discussion in regard to justice between Socrates and
Polemarchus, Polemarchus put forward the concept of “giving to each what is
owed to him” (Plato, 12) in the beginning. Socrates, however, pointed out that
he had shallow understandings towards this expression. The example was
illustrated by Socrates to support his idea: if one friend of yours handed you
a weapon when he had a clear mind, while requested to reclaim the weapon after
gone mad. Under this circumstance, was it justice or not to give the friend
back his weapon? Based on the definition proposed by Polemarchus, it was only
justice by giving back the weapon. However, as Socrates explained, no one would
consider this behavior to be justice, since it might threaten the safety of all
others if a mad man retrieved the weapon. This definition of Polemarchus was
self-contradictory with no doubt. The discussion on justice, till now, revealed
that justice was not only paying back debts, but also figured out whether the
debts to be paid back were good or bad to others.

In
the second phase of the discussion, through answering the question proposed by
Socrates on what to give back a friend and what to give back an enemy,
Polemarchus change his definition of justice to “benefit one’s friends and
harming one’s enemies” (Plato, 13). Yet Socrates, once again, refuted this
opinion.

First
of all, Socrates suggested that justice was a master art. As doctors and
steersmen being the perfect example of doing good to friends and do harm to
enemy, Socrates had Polemarchus believed that justice was a kind of art as
medical skills and sailing. What’s more, justice was more helpful when in a
war. Consequently, justice was useless in normal lives. Polemarchus, hearing
this, explained that justice was an art that was essential in establishing
partnership. By making a detailed inquiry in terms of in what kind of
partnership was the just man a better parter, Socrates made Polemarchus to
narrow down the partnership into the relationship related to money, and
further, the relationship related to money keeping. Yet money was useless when
it was kept. So far of the discussion, the definition of Polemarchus on justice
led to a paradox that any arts were useful and able to provide something good,
instead of justice.

Secondly,
Socrates replied on the concepts of friend and enemy in Polemarchus’ definition.
A series of questions including whether a friend was someone who seemed to be
good, or someone who was actually good, and if being a friend of a bad people,
then helping the friend was actually helping the bad people, Polemarchus
realized the mistake in his definition, which was that friends were those who
were in fact reliable, instead of those who seemed to be. He therefore changed
his definition of justice again to do good to friends who were actually good,
and do harm to enemy who were actually evil.

Thirdly,
when Polemarchus was crowed about his amended definition, another question was
raised by Socrates that whether a just man could harm others. The concept of
virtue was introduced by Socrates with the examples of injured horses and dogs
becoming bad, on the purpose of stating that justice was the virtue of human
kind. Hence, a just man was a good man who could harm no one.

So
far, after the discussion, the definition of justice proposed by Polemarchus
had been deconstructed by Socrates.

As
a matter of fact, neither the definition of Polemarchus, nor the explanation of
Socrates towards justice could be considered as wrong. They were explaining
themselves through different perspectives. Polemarchus considered justice to be
doing good to friends and harm the enemies from the perspective of an
individuals. However, Socrates put justice into a broader background, taking
the benefits of other people and the states into account.

To
define what justice is based on the discussion between Socrates and
Polemarchus, what is the virtue, or goodness you may say, for human being
should be defined for starters. Take a watch for example, its goodness is
indicating time correctly. For a horse, being good at running is the most
valuable virtue of it. Being injured refers to that it is no longer a
"good" horse. Accordingly, what is the virtue of a human being? Is it
being healthy, being wealthy or being smart? Baesd on the theory of Socrates,
the virtue of a human being is indeed justice. People are considered as good
owing to being just. The reason of Socrates disproving Polemarchus is forcing
him to figure out what is good for a human being via confirming the definition
of "damage" as he said in the definition of justice.

Polemarchus
brought forward that justice was doing good to friends while harming the enemy.
However, when Socrates proposed that justice was the virtue of human being,
Polemarchus did not deny it, but gave tacit consent to this explanation which
was in fact, contradictory from what he insisted. Normally, when talking about
"damage", it usually means hurting people's bodies, taking away their
lives or stealing their money etc.Under this premise, the definition provided
by Polemarchus that justice was doing good to friends and harming enemy implies
that health, life and fortune are what is good for human being, namely what
people pursue for. Justice, however, is not the virtue or goodness pursued by
people, but the means to achieve the above-mentioned goodness. Such justice,
preserving the benefits of a small group, is what Socrates opposes, on account
of it being no good for the city. In order to be healthy, rich or alive, people
will have to seize for more power or wipe out more enemies. Socrates,
therefore, considered such justice as the justice of the tyrant or the rich.
Justice should be what people pursue for, instead of what people use to pursue
for their goals. Making people unjust is indeed hurting their virtue or
goodness, rather than making them unhealthy or poor. Taking away the live of a
just man, such as the death of Socrates, does no harm to his goodness, and vice
versa, being a just man will never do harm to others.

Hence
one can see that the explanations of justice from both Polemarchus and Socrates
make sense but explaining it from different perspectives. For instance, in the
war of two countries, soldiers from country A killing those from country B is
unjust for people in country B, whereas, it is heroic conduct for people in
country A, owing to they doing that to protect their own state. Another example
is that when helping strangers who are being robbed on the street, a people
accidently killed the robber. He or she is not a just man based on the law, due
to taking away a man's life. On the other hand, this action is taken under the
premise of saving someone who is in danger, thus the people is for no doubt a
just man for the victom. Therefore, as long as people doing what they do on the
purpose of pursuing the virtue of justice, they are righteous. Specifically,
sense, passion and desire are the three parts that makes us human. Only with
the harmonious coexistence of the three parts can people achieve justice.
Dominated by passion and desire, a man lack of sense will do the things harmful
to others, such as thieves and robbers. A just man has passion and desire that
enables him to acknowledge the human nature, while has sense to dominate
passion and desire and prevent them from losing control.

To
sum it up, the points of view proposed by Polemarchus and Socrates in the
discussion of the Republic were both reasonable, but stood for the benefits of
different people. Polemarchus spoke for ordinary and traditional Greek
individuals, while Socrates for the higher class who concerned more for the
benefits of the whole city. To unify their explanations, justice is what people
pursue for, instead of the means to pursue for a certain goals. It is the
harmonious coexistence of sense, passion and desire inside the soul of human
beings.